[tz] [PATCH 0/2] Follow Australian common usage and update CST/CST to CST/CDT and EST/EST to EST/EDT etc [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

[Timothy Arceri]

>I just want to remind the list, I think we may have overemphasized the
>surveys. Sampling the Internet is not good data, and there is a
>massive effect from the deployment of the tz database that is nearly
>impossible to control for.
>
>(That is, because today's tz database uses 'EST' and friends, many many
>web resources will choose to do so as well.)

I have already pointed out this and other flaws with using search surveys. But it seemed that none of our other evidence was being taken seriously. So we tried to create a survey that would remove the situation the you have described as well as removing other false positives. The survey is still not a perfect but I believe it is much better than the previous methods used.  


________________________________________
From: tz-bounces at iana.org [tz-bounces at iana.org] On Behalf Of John Hawkinson [jhawk at mit.edu]
Sent: Thursday, 11 April 2013 8:43 PM
To: tz at iana.org
Subject: Re: [tz] [PATCH 0/2] Follow Australian common usage and update CST/CST to CST/CDT and EST/EST to EST/EDT etc [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Paul Eggert <eggert at cs.ucla.edu> wrote on Wed, 10 Apr 2013
at 22:53:38 -0700 in <51664FE2.8030309 at cs.ucla.edu>:

> Thanks for doing all that legwork, including the search
> surveys.  I will look at it in the next few days; something
> like this needs a bit of time to review properly.  I also
> hope that others can find the time to look over the survey
> results.

I just want to remind the list, I think we may have overemphasized the
surveys. Sampling the Internet is not good data, and there is a
massive effect from the deployment of the tz database that is nearly
impossible to control for.

(That is, because today's tz database uses 'EST' and friends, many many
web resources will choose to do so as well.)

And, also, Steve Jobs was not wrong when he observed (in less polite
terms?) that users may not always have an accurate idea of what they
actually want. A person's expectation of what is most
convenient/best/fun/usable/desirable may not match up with reality,
and it is very hard to engineer good studies to measure these things,
even with a lot of time, money, and human subject research -- none of
which we really have.

Sorry if this email is redundant.

--jhawk at mit.edu
  John Hawkinson